August 1923: His date with history a mere four weeks away, the professional boxer was training furiously in Atlantic City.

Meanwhile, at a boarding house in Park Ridge, 150 miles to the north, the stray puppy was staying close to the side of an 8 year-old girl.

To be sure, there was no confusing Luis Angel Firpo with the Airedale mix who would soon bear his name and, 50 years later, find himself memorialized in New York’s law books.

Nicknamed “The Wild Bull of the Pampas,”, the six-foot, three-inch, 215-pound Argentinean became the first Latin American to fight for the heavyweight championship of the world when he faced Jack Dempsey at the Polo Grounds on Sept.14.

In what many cite as the greatest title fight in boxing history, Firpo not only survived seven trips to the canvas but, at one point, rebounded to knock Dempsey out of the ring with a thunderous right to the head.

All of this in the first round!

The second round, however, saw no such comeback by Firpo. After an eighth knockdown early in the round, he was knocked out cold several seconds later.

While victory thus eluded the gutsy but unpolished fighter, it had already been the persistent puppy’s reward. For on that very night, he was relaxing in his brand new, two-room dog house in the backyard of the little girl’s family home on Webster Avenue in Brooklyn.

And on that very night, my mother, then 8 years old, and my grandparents settled on his brand new name. Firpo.

My mother still speaks fondly about her favorite dog, the puppy who jumped into their car before my grandfather could drive away from Park Ridge.

She recalls with a smile how she’d cook scraps from the butcher for him, and how he’d wait patiently as she blew on each of them until they were cool enough to eat.

What brings all of this to mind is the story in the Advance last Friday about Jack, a black lab mix, and the custody issues that followed his escape from his Ashland, Kentucky, home and his placement by an animal rescue organization with a Staten Island family.

During my years as a Family Court judge, I resolved several custody disputes involving animals. They included dogs, cats and a horse.

ODD REQUEST

It was an unusual domestic violence case in 1984, however, that provided me with the opportunity to formally acknowledge Firpo.

A wife initiated the proceeding in which she requested an order of protection against her husband and, believe it or not, the family dog. She stated under oath that her husband was frequently under the influence of alcohol in the home and had seriously assaulted her on at least two occasions.

The dog, she insisted, had become her husband’s partner in perpetuating the abuse. Claiming that, as a team, they constituted a continuing, imminent threat to her minor children and herself, she asked that they both be ordered out of the home.

After listening to the testimony at the fact-finding hearing, certain things became clear to me. I learned, for instance, that as a puppy, the dog’s life had been uneventful.

However, after the husband started abusing alcohol, he would order the dog to attack his wife during the arguments that invariably followed.

Unfortunately, the animal dutifully obliged and, on at least one such occasion, attacked the children as well.

While the husband eventually stopped issuing attack orders to the dog, the hapless canine had become so attuned to his moods that he no longer needed any instigation to act upon his protective instincts.

On one occasion, for instance, when the couple started shouting at each other, the dog confronted the wife so menacingly that she fled to the bathroom for her safety.

She was forced to remain there for hours because the dog, having set up camp outside the door, growled every time she started to open it.

While I obviously couldn’t issue an order of protection against the dog, I did order the husband to remove the animal and himself from the home.

Since there was credible evidence that the wife, too, had a drinking problem, I issued an order of protection to the children directing her not to consume alcoholic beverages in the home and not to be in the presence of the kids if under the influence of alcohol.

Because the case presented several novel legal issues, I wrote a lengthy opinion which was accepted for publication by the Official Law Reporter. Consistent with established practice and the Family Court’s confidential status, I used fictitious names for the parties.

And, as I stated in a footnote, I used a fictitious name for the dog too. Thus he became “Firpo.”

Certainly not the Firpo of Park Ridge either in appearance or temperament, but Firpo nonetheless, and he’ll stick around as long as there is law in New York State.

[Daniel Leddy’s column appears each Tuesday on the Advance Editorial Page. His e-mail address is JudgeLeddy@si.rr.com.]